San Francisco man becomes first in history to be ‘cured’ of AIDS

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San Francisco man becomes first in history to be ‘cured’ of AIDS

Timothy Ray Brown, a 45-year-old San Francisco man previously known to the medical community as “the Berlin patient,” has become the first person to ever be cured of AIDS.
After a stem cell bone marrow transplant, doctors say his HIV, the infection which causes AIDS, was eradicated.
His bone marrow donor was one of a very small percentage of people who are immune to HIV. He received a second bone marrow transplant after a resurgence of Leukemia, which he’s also since been cured of.
Doctors still aren’t exactly sure what part of his treatment allowed his body to purge the virus, but clinical trials are scheduled to begin in 2012.

a video is on this page -
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/05/16/apparent-immunity-gene-cures-bay-area-man-of-aids/


 
Scientists Disarm AIDS Virus’ Attack on Immune System


Scientists say they have found a way to disarm the AIDS virus in research that could lead to a vaccine. Researchers have discovered that if they eliminate a cholesterol membrane surrounding the virus, HIV cannot disrupt communication among disease-fighting cells and the immune system returns to normal.

Scientists have discovered that HIV needs cholesterol, which it picks up from the first immune cells it infects, to keep the virus' outer membrane fluid. That allows it to communicate with - and disrupt - the body's immune system.

The long-term effect of this disrupted communication is to destroy the body’s normal defense against the AIDS virus, which is responsible for 1.8 million deaths each year.

But researchers say they can prevent HIV from damaging the immune system, if they remove the cholesterol from the virus’ outer membrane.

David Graham is a molecular biologist at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

“By stealing cholesterol from the envelope of the virus, we can neutralize the subversion," said Graham. "We’ve broken the code; we can shut down the type of interference that HIV is having on the immune system.”

The cholesterol used by HIV, Graham notes, is not the same cholesterol that circulates in blood and causes coronary artery disease. He says the AIDS virus incorporates cholesterol into its membrane from plasmacytoid dendritic cells or pDCs - the first immune cells to recognize the virus. The pDC cells normally signal the adaptive part of the immune system - T cells - to form a more specific, long-lasting response.

But through its newly-acquired cholesterol membrane, Graham says HIV reprograms the immune system - starting with the first responder cells - so they become hyperactive.

“These cells are just saying, 'No way. We’re not shutting off," he said. "We are going to keep responding.' And that causes the cells of the adaptive immune system to start shutting down.”

The T-cells do not respond properly, and the virus can spread.

Graham says this might explain why scientists have so far been unsuccessful in developing an AIDS vaccine. Many candidate vaccines attempt to bolster the T-cells, which have been weakened by what the virus does to the pDC cells.

Graham, along with his colleagues at several European universities, found a way to disable HIV’s cholesterol membrane so it cannot corrupt the first-responder cells, clearing the way for T-cells to fight the HIV infection, or pathogen, more effectively.

“The immune system now treated it more like a regular pathogen that you would encounter, and we would have normal immune responses that would result in protection," said Graham.

So far, research has been conducted only in the laboratory. But Graham says he hopes studies in animals and humans will eventually lead to an AIDS vaccine.

The research, funded by Britain’s Wellcome Trust and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is described in an article published in the journal Blood.
 
It's awesome news, but in the end, if we cure AIDS, there will be another virus/disease to come around. It's how it always will be. Man cures one disease, another develops. We will never be able to beat the system. But it's a plus.
 
CivicDew said:
Pretty amazing. We we could find a cure for cancer. :sadbanana:
Click to expand...



DCA - supposedly could be the largest breakthrough to date. Brain, Breast, and Lung cancer have already shown to be basically eradicated in animal testing. Bad news, it's an old drug and they need roughly 100+ million dollars to do further testing. There is no patent on the drug, so it can be made "generic" immediately, therefore no pharmaceutical company wants to put funds towards it.
 
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